ABSTRACT
The historian works with documents. Documents are the traces which have been left by the thoughts and actions of men of former times. For want of documents the history of immense periods in the past of humanity is destined to remain forever unknown. For there is no substitute for documents: no documents, no history. At the epoch of the Renaissance the documents of ancient and modern history were scattered in innumerable private libraries and in innumerable depositories of archives, almost all of them inaccessible, not to mention those which lay hidden beneath the soil, their very existence as yet unsuspected. The concentration of a great number of historical documents in vast public establishments was the fortunate result of this spontaneous evolution. Ancient historical documents are collected and preserved chiefly in the public institutions which are called archives, libraries, and museums.
